Written by Kara Gammell

You can now get cashback on your mobile with the latest app

Keeping up with the Joneses means making the most of your smart phone. And with the right applications – or apps – you’ll never have to pay full price for a meal out or a good book again.

We have picked 10 apps to help you save money.

10 of the best smart phone apps that will save you money Photo: ANDREW HASSON

1 Quidco

Cost Free

Available for iPhone

Cashback website www.quidco.com has just launched an app which rewards users with exclusive money-saving offers just for checking

in to certain high street stores and restaurants.

The UK’s first check-in for cash tool, the Quidco Mobile app lets you make

the most of dozens of money-saving offers in your area such as vouchers and in-store cashback deals when you tap your phone to “check in”.

For instance, this week, check-in at high street retailers such as Debenhams, New Look, Yo Sushi or Esquires Coffee and earn while you shop.

2 Amazon Kindle

Cost Free

Available for iPhone, iPad and Android

Bookworms and commuters will love this free to download app which will let you install Kindle software to read e-books on the move – saving you from forking out as much as £150 for the reading device alone.

With more than a million free books to download from the Kindle Store, it is like having a virtual library of free books at your finger tips.

3 Vouchercloud

Cost Free

Available for iPhone and Android

Vouchercloud uses GPS technology to pinpoint offers and discounts nearest to you. Just pick the offer you want by pressing the redeem button and the voucher is delivered directly to your phone screen.

For example, this week you can download vouchers for 25pc off your bill at Bella Italia, Strada or Café Rouge.

4 Onavo

Cost Free

Available for iPhone, iPad and Android

With the cost of data rising and more mobile providers capping limits, this app can save you a fortune as it claims to give users up to 80pc off their data bills. Once downloaded, this app continuously runs on your device and shrinks the data used every day when browsing the web.

5 0870

Cost 59p

Available for iPhone, iPod touch or Android

Stop paying more than you need on customer service lines with this app. Many companies will use 0870, 0800 or 0845 for customer service, which usually costs 35p per minute to call. This app will turn these numbers into 01 or 02 numbers, which will come out of your contracted minutes.

6 Spotify

Cost Free

Available for iPhone, Android, Symbian, Palm, Windows phone

For music on the move, why not download the Spotify Mobile app and wirelessly sync all your own songs to your handset? Buy whole Spotify playlists and download them in a few clicks. There’s no access to the Spotify music library or Offline mode, but you can log in to Spotify and search for tracks.

Upgrade your membership to Unlimited or Premium for either £4.99-£9.99 a month respectively and stream any of the 13 million tracks in the Spotify library.

7 Ringo Car Parking

Cost Free

Available for Android

Avoid costly car parks with this app from the same company that allows drivers to pay at many NCP and council car parks over the phone with a credit or debit card.

It promises to help you find the best price on parking and allows you to extend the time on the meter so you avoid hefty fines if you are late getting back to your car.

8 Tesco

Cost Free

Available for iPhone

Never buy duplicate items on your food shopping again with the bar-code scanner on Tesco’s groceries app.

When you run out of something in the kitchen, just scan the item and it will automatically be added to your online shopping on the supermarket’s website.

9 Love Food, Hate Waste

Cost: Free

Available for iPhone

Food waste costs the average family more than £680 a year, according to waste management group WRAP. Plan in advance what you are going to eat for the week to avoid throwing out the food you meant to cook at the end of it.

Use this app’s handy portion-size planner to help you prepare the right amount of food and eliminate waste. Or use the recipe blender to try to prepare meals from ingredients you already have in your cupboard.

10 RedLaser

Cost Free

Available for iPhone and Android

Compare prices on the shop floor with this bar-code reading app. Simply scan the item you wish to buy with RedLaser and compare prices of products online by instantly searching TheFind, Google Product Search, eBay and Half.com.

Bonus: A modest proposal to make finding & coordinating with friends easier over text message.

Written by Chris Morran Photo by Someone Named Meg

Consumerist reader K. recently ended his 4.5 year tenure as a Geek Squad member at Best Buy. And while he says that he considers his time there to be “generally a positive experience,” K. did feel that there is some backstage info the public might want to know.

K. writes:

1. A high percentage of Geek Squad employees lack basic troubleshooting skills such as correctly identifying malfunctioning components. This stems from inadequate and outdated training materials, such as the Best Buy Learning Lounge.

2. People are hired or promoted from other departments to Geek Squad simply to sell services. Specifically, individuals who have no experience working on computers are given the appearance of being a technician.

3. Selling services and warranties are pushed more than actually completing repairs. I remember one instance where my GM said that selling a new computer with services was more important than completing a customer’s unit that they had already paid for.

4. Employees are taught situational tactics to extract as much money as possible from a potential customer. If an individual had a small software issue that could simply be resolved, then we were taught to charge $200.

5. Although this changed shortly before I left, Geek Squad employees at the store I worked at were required to track each individual sale. Before the end of your shift, you were required to get a manager to look at your sales sheet and sign it. If you weren’t doing so well, then the manager “coached” you on how to sell more services.

6. Best Buy Credit Cards were pushed to customers at every available opportunity. More than once, I witnessed Best Buy employees talking to people about signing up for a credit card, only to find out they were not old enough. Also, we were taught in Geek Squad to push the credit card even if the customer was already paying with another form of tender.

7. There is no chance for advancement within the Geek Squad department. The only position an employee could move up to is the Manager.

8. Best Buy does not encourage Geek Squad employees to get certifications or reimburse or pay for part of taking a certification. I specifically remember inquiring about this, and apparently there exists such a program for the GS Auto Techs in which they also get paid more for each certification passed, but not for GS Computer Techs.

9. Geek Squad City, the repair center for repairs we could not do in-store (any repair that was not a hard drive, memory, or power supply replacement), routinely completed unsatisfactory repair work. There were times I would send off a computer 3 times for a verified issue and the unit would come back with the same issue un-repaired. The worst example I can remember was a laptop that had its screen replaced and where the webcam was supposed to be on the screen bezel was instead a screw that held the LCD together.

Bonus: Roald Dahl, you are a good man.